I'm disappointed - Francis

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Jamaica's Sunshine Girls suffered a humiliating 69-42 thrashing to top-ranked Australia in their second match of their best-of-three series yesterday at the Sydney State Sports Centre.

The Connie Francis-coached team now trails the series 2-0 following their 58-39 loss to the Australians on Sunday in Melbourne.

Francis, while speaking to The Gleaner during a telephone interview, said that she was disappointed with the team's performance during the contest.

"It was a below-par performance, especially from our senior players inside the mid-court area because I think that is were we lost the game," said Francis.

Excellent game

"I thought Romelda (Aiken) and played an excellent game for us and despite being constantly double-teamed by the Australian defenders, she was able to keep us in game for a while," she added.

"However, but as you know, we have two rookie goal attacks (Vanessa Walker and Ann-Kay Griffith) and they were very nervous and this affected us for the entire match," Francis said.

"I thought we could have played much better; I believe that we lost game in the third quarter because we allowed the Australians to out-muscle us," Francis noted.

Three training sessions

She added that they will stage three training sessions before their next game on Sunday and that they will be working on their mistakes in these practice periods.

"I am looking for a better performance in our final game on Sunday because I know that the players believe in themselves that they can do it," said Francis.

Jamaica trailed by just one point midway the opening quarter, with ace goal shooter Aiken scoring 11 goals from 11 attempts. However, Australia's proficiency at getting the ball down court was eventually too much for the Sunshine Girls, as the Diamonds took a 23-12 lead at the end of the period. Aiken finished the match with 33 goals. Walker and Griffith scored seven and two goals, respectively.

The final Test match will be play on Sunday in Queensland.